I know Americans who work like slaves at home so that their wives and daughters may enjoy themselves in Paris and London. For this they demand nothing except an occasional letter, which they sometimes get.
Mother is very tired! She has had to pay calls, go to so many 'at homes,' so many garden-parties! She is exhausted; she wants a change of air immediately. Father is at his office, a dingy, badly-ventilated room. He has had no holiday for a year. He, too, would like a little change of air; but what's the matter with father? He's all right.
In the most humble stations of life we have all of us known that man who gets up at five o'clock in the morning, lights the fire to cook a bit of breakfast for himself, gets his tools and starts to his daily labour, wiping off the dew of the dawn on his boots while many a mother is sleeping. With his hard-earned wages he pays the butcher, the grocer, the milkman and the baker. He stands off the wolf and the bailiff and pays the rent.
What's the matter with father? How blessed that home would be without him!
I know there are loafers who refuse the work that would enable them to support their wives and children. There are also good steady workmen who at home find nothing awaiting them except the sight of a drunken woman, who not only has not prepared a meal for him, but has spent his hard-earned money, and not uncommonly even pawned the baby's shoes to get brandy or gin with. 'What's home without a mother?' 'God bless our mother!'
Do give father a chance, if you please.